


Andiron

by sp_oops



Category: Plague Tale: Innocence (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff, Spoilers, trauma n shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 08:22:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19247428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sp_oops/pseuds/sp_oops
Summary: Five years after--well, everything--Amicia has found it difficult to move on. But when an unexpected guest accompanies her brother home from town, memories of those days come roaring back.(Or, vignettes of life from and around the Chateau d'Ombrage. Totally shameless fix-it.)





	Andiron

**Author's Note:**

> aaahahaha what is this who am i, g-rated shiz is is so not my usual thing but this game wrecked me so here we are
> 
> anyway  
>    
>  **and·i·ron**  
>  | ˈanˌdīərn |  
> noun  
> a metal support that holds wood burning in a fireplace

When Hugo reaches the crest in the road with the sun at his back, he isn’t alone. He sits high in the saddle, but someone new leads the family’s sturdy gray mare with a hand on the bridle. Even from this distance, Amicia hears Hugo’s laugh, bright as a summer day.

A new friend, then. Hugo’s always making friends. He’s only grown more talkative in the last five years. Now that the world isn’t broken, he loves nothing more than to turn a quick errand into an afternoon-long social call. Adults are charmed by him; he’s developed a swarm of friends his age.

They keep a cottage outside the village, the de Runes and Lucas. It looks out over a few acres brimming with green herbs and vegetables, fragrant with fresh-turned earth. Chickens peck at seed in a tidy yard. Their mare pulls the plow and serves as a mount for when they ride into town. The stream is deep and wide enough for fishing when game is scarce.

Beatrice and Lucas have their laboratory, a makeshift clinic for villagers in need of tonics and tinctures. Hugo has his books, already determined to attend university when he’s old enough.

Amicia hunts. The forest beyond the field teems with hare and deer and boar. She carved herself a bow this past spring, a present for herself on her nineteenth birthday. Her prey fall with clean shots through the eye. The skins, she sells in town. The meat, they dine on like kings.

She likes the woods. They’re quiet. She can concentrate on tracking, blending in. Waiting. The plague, the rats, the terrors that still wake her in the night—none of it can reach her when she’s sighting down the shaft of an arrow. She’s teaching herself fletching to fill her spare moments at the cottage.

It’s a life, and most days, Amicia is happy. Truly. But grief and loss have left a wound that’s never quite closed over. Some days it feels like everyone’s moved on but her. At night, before she sleeps, she whispers the names of the ones she’s lost, a prayer, a plea. A promise that she won’t forget them. _Father. Lion. Arthur. Rodric_. And a prayer for the living, too—or at least, those she still hopes are living. Clervie. Melie, who winters with them some years. Her visits ease Amicia’s heart a little.

Now, Amicia sets her bow and game just inside the front gate. The rabbit will make a fine supper, and they’ve been pulling carrots and potatoes from the earth these past few weeks. Perhaps Hugo’s friend will want to stay.

Turning back to the road, she shields her eyes against the sunset light, trying to see Hugo better. “Hello, Hugo,” she calls when he’s close enough. “Who’s your friend?”

“Your sister doesn’t recognize me,” comes a cheery voice. “Have I changed so much?” It’s the man holding the bridle, and something about him—something about that voice—

Hugo jumps down from the saddle with practiced ease and closes the rest of the distance in a heartbeat. “Amicia, look! Look who I found in the market! It’s Rodric!”

The man’s at the front gate now, still holding the bridle. He’s turned so the sun isn’t quite so blinding, and he—he’s smiling bashfully, looking at her from under his lashes.

It’s him.

God and all his saints—it’s Rodric.

 

*

*

*

 

She leaves Chateau D’Ombrage to hunt for supper, and comes back to a workbench stocked with mended tools, all the rust sanded away, joints working smoothly. Rodric has carved the crumbling mallet a fine new handle, too, set the fist-sized stone in a new bearing.

“It was nothing,” Rodric says later, but there’s a faint pink in his cheeks that may not be from the heat of the hearth. He’s carving something else now, a lump of pine in one hand and a small, sharp knife in the other. “Amateur work.”

“Not to me,” says Amicia. “I couldn’t have done it. And it will make my repairs that much quicker.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Rodric pauses, drapes an arm over his raised knee. Strong arms, Amicia thinks. The corded muscle divides his bare forearm, shadows dancing along it from the shivering flames. “There’s more I can do,” he says. “I want to have a look at the braziers in the courtyard, for starters. They could all move more smoothly.”

“I could help,” Amicia says eagerly. “I’m not as good as you, but. . .” She indicates the sling at her hip. Some days she thinks she’s going to develop a permanent crease in her breeches from its constant, reassuring weight.

“I’d like that,” says Rodric. “And don’t sell yourself short. I’ve seen what you’ve done to that sling. You’re a natural.”

Her face warms with pleasure. “Don’t be a tease.”

“I’m not.” Rodric is smiling now. “I bet you could teach me a thing or two, eh?”

How would Melie handle this? Melie would never share enough of her heart for anyone to notice. Amicia fishes for something neutral, and lands on, “We shall see.”

Rodric’s grin sets something fizzling inside her, luminous and weightless. It feels like cool mornings racing through the apple orchard with Lion, the whole day ripe with possibility. Father’s hard-earned praise when her careful shots knocked his practice targets clean over. The kitchen staff sneaking her rolls rich with butter and cinnamon and honey.

“I’m going to bed,” she announces. Even now, Hugo sleeps on the pallet nearby. Lucas is still tinkering with the book in the laboratory below, keeping odd hours as ever. “Are you?”

“Not quite tired yet.” Rodric turns back to his carving, the sharp, slight blade shining in the firelight. “I’ll watch over you until then.”

Amicia ducks her head. Rodric has caught her blush, no doubt. “Well. All right.”

She settles in beside her little brother. Without waking, Hugo rolls toward her, snuggling in with a weary sigh. There’s something in his hand.

It’s carving of a cat sitting on its haunches, a long tail wrapped around its legs. Its eyes are closed and yet pleased, its mouth smiling beneath a button nose. Tiny indents cross its paws to mark its toes. The whole thing is sanded smooth. It’s charming.

For the first time since—she doesn’t know when—something unclenches around her heart. Sleep finds her easily.

 

*

 

One crisp-cold morning, sharpening her hunting knife on a grindstone near their makeshift forge, she asks him where he got his scars.

Rodric tilts his chin up, gives her a raised brow and a grin he probably thinks is dashing. It is, the sod. “This old thing?” The jagged mark on his cheek looks more sunken than usual in the light from the fire. “Just a street fight. Brawlers looking for trouble after dark.”

Amicia can wield a raised brow just as well as he can.

“Can’t get anything past you, can I.” Rodric says it fondly, turning back to the forge. He stirs the coals around, his hands lost in his large gloves. “My father had debts. His debtors weren’t decent folk.” The spade hisses when he plants the hot end in the frosty ground and leans on it. “They liked to rough him up when they came around. One day I got between them. Et voilà.”

She’s forgotten the knife in her hand. “But your father built that magnificent door at the university. Surely. . .”

“That’s what got him _out_ of debt. After that, we never saw those monsters again.” He turns back to the fire. "Does it offend you?"

"What, your scar?" She's incredulous. "Of course not. It's just proof."

"Of what, pigheadedness?" 

"That you're a good person. That you loved your father."

"I did. I still do." He leaves the spade on the stone ledge and comes back to her, dusting off his gloves. There's a lightness in his shoulders that wasn't there when he gave her the truth. "What about you? You want to tell me where you got your scars?"

She frowns. There's one hidden on her right knee, one in the webbing between her thumb and forefinger, so faded by time that she doesn't even think of it anymore. He can't know about those. "I. . ."

"Just because we can't see them doesn't mean they aren't here." Rodric taps his apron, just above his heart. "They can hurt just as bad."

She wants to scoff. Dismiss him. Accuse him of using pretty words like that on every village girl with stars in her eyes. But though she's known him a short while, he's only ever been genuine with her. 

"Ask me again," she suggests, "when we've time for the whole story."

He does.

 

*

 

Amicia might be from nobility, but she isn’t _stupid_. She knows how things work between men and women. Or men and men. Women and women. She’s caught servants canoodling before, and won a grudging sort of respect for keeping their secrets.

But she never got around to it herself. The other children at the manor were too young or too old to catch her interest, and she didn’t know anyone in the village well enough to make an overture.

Rodric, however. Rodric makes her wonder what she’s been missing.

Melie may tease him about being all brawn and no brain, but that isn’t so—although there is plenty of brawn. One morning Amicia walks in on him scrubbing bare-chested before a basin of steaming water and nearly trips over her own boots in her haste to leave again. He just laughs, a cloth to his face, his muscles bunched from that angle.

But she loves how his mind works, always ready with a practical solution as they begin repairs in earnest on the chateau. At the same time, he tells the most fantastical stories. Hugo actually sits still to listen, and so does Amicia. When they unearth a trunk full of fairy tales and adventure stories, Rodric’s just as excited at the contents within.

By the fire one night, with Hugo asleep and Lucas below, Amicia works up her courage. “Did you have a sweetheart in the city?” she asks.

Rodric shrugs. He’s working on another carving, his strong hands steady and sure. “I’ve kissed a few maidens fair.”

“You’ve more experience than me, then.”

“Not by much, I’ll wager. Never got the chance to take it much further.”

Her face feels hot as forgefire. “Oh.”

Grinning, his gray eyes alighting on hers, he says, “If you’d like me to kiss you, Amicia, you only need ask.”

Shock near freezes her bones. Then she laughs, thrilled and terrified in equal measure. “A generous offer,” she says, buoyed by his own cheer. “I’ll have to think on it.”

She never gets the chance.

 

*

 

Lord Nicholas goes down in a swarm of rats, but not before the bastard puts his blade through Arthur’s heart.

“We should bury him,” Amicia manages at last. Her throat burns from all the fire. The smoke billows into the night, graying out the stars.

“No.” Melie’s voice wavers even on that one word. After their pact, after they all swore to take down Vitalis and the entire Inquisition, Melie sank to her knees beside her brother’s body. She hasn’t let go of Arthur’s hand, though Amicia thinks it must be cold by now. “I don’t want him where the rats can get him.”

“I’ll tell them not to.” Hugo’s offer is as tiny as he is.

Amicia squeezes his hand. “Come on. We’ll build a pyre.”

Rodric carries Arthur’s body to it. As it burns, as Melie watches the flames climb higher, Rodric joins Amicia and Hugo. His broad shoulder brushes hers, and like a spark, Amicia's anger simmers against his own. “They will pay for this.” Rodric’s oath is nearly swept away by the sound of the flames. “Every last one of them. For this. For everything they've done to us.”

Amicia doesn't think she could keep her feet without Rodric here at her side. She reaches for his broad hand with her spare one. He threads his callused fingers through hers, grips tight enough that her bones grind together. She grips right back. They'll get through this. They'll do it together.

 

*

 

Rodric’s cheeks are smudged with dirt and his own blood, his every step dragging with exhaustion. The arrows in his shoulders sway with his labored breaths. He looks like an icon of Saint Sebastian. “Go,” he says. “Go on. Quickly.”

“No.” Too much loss. Too much heartache. She thought they were done with this kind of pain. Paid their penance with Arthur. “ _No_ ,” Amicia insists, her eyes blurring. Spilling over. “I won’t leave you. I _can’t_ —”

“I’ll catch up.” Rodric delivers the lie through a half-smile, still going for charm despite his wounds. “Come on.”

His arms tremble with the effort of lifting the portcullis. Hugo shimmies through, then Amicia follows, gravel tearing at her arms, her knees. She cries out with the pain. Anger, too, bleak despair opening up inside her heart yet again. Soon as she’s on the other side, the gate slips out of Rodric’s hands.

He falls, slumping against the gate, and the bastard has the audacity to _apologize_ , as though this is his fault. She can’t go to him. She can’t make her knees bend, her hands stretch to comfort him. If she does—if she says goodbye—then it’s real. Then he’s really gone. The anguish will consume her, drag her beneath its black waves, and she’ll never get back to the surface.

Hugo’s the one who does it, in the end, reaching through the gate like he’s hiding benediction in his little hands. He touches Rodric’s scarred cheek while Amicia stands there, her legs leaden, drowning in denial.

Amicia thinks she’ll regret not saying goodbye until the day she follows Rodric into the hereafter.

 

*

*

*

 

He is whole. He is whole, and he is standing before her, taller even than she remembers. His shoulders are broad as a cart. His hair isn’t any more tamed, but his face is clean, his scar a little more faded. Thick smith’s gloves hang over his belt. No apron, but she can see the lighter shadow against his shirt where it’s protected him from soot and singe.

His smile makes him look younger. There’s no bitterness, no grim good humor. Just light. Relief. He says, “Hello, Amicia,” and his voice is deeper, even huskier, than she remembers.  
  
“We saw you fall.” Amicia hears her own voice wobble. Her eyes blur with tears, her breath catching. “You held the gate—I _saw_ you fall—“

“Unconscious.” He rubs the back of his neck. “The soldiers brought me to a medic. Thought I’d be of use, if they could save me. And they did. By the time I was well enough to look for you, you were gone.”

“Rodric,” says Hugo, for all the world sounding like the boy he was last time they met, “come see Lucas. You can meet our mother!”

Rodric lets Hugo take the reins and lash the mare to the gate, then lets himself be tugged into the cottage, a bashful look at Amicia as he passes.

But Amicia catches his wrist. Tendons flex beneath her fingers; it’s not a strong grip, not as strong as she could make it, but the huge bulk of him, the broad-shouldered ox he is—he pauses instantly, turning back to her. Hope gilds his gray eyes.

“Rodric.” It’s all she can manage.

He folds her hand into his. “I searched for you.”

“You did?” Her eyes prickle with tears.

“And your family. Everywhere. This village was only the latest stop.” Rodric smiles. “I’ve apprenticed for every blacksmith in the country, it feels like.”

“But you found us.” Amicia can barely believe it, still. She stares at her hand in his. “Now what?”

“Well.” He glances around. “I might put roots down—if you meant it when you said we’d find another castle.”

She cannot believe he remembers that. She’d stood at his shoulder as he knelt in the rubble of his family’s forge, promised him they’d find someplace else to feel at home again. One moment out of a thousand that she still thinks of, day in, day out. Now she casts a rueful glance at the cottage behind her. “Rodric, this is no castle.”

“Yes, it is.” His easy smile makes her heart catch. He lifts her hand, kisses her knuckles. His eyes shine. “It’s got everything I could ever want.”

**Author's Note:**

> let's yell on tumblr @[sp-oops](http://sp-oops.tumblr.com)


End file.
